arXiv subjects

Pilar Hernandez

Publications and source records attributed to Pilar Hernandez.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Physics Briefing Book: Input for the 2026 update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics

The European Strategy for Particle Physics (ESPP) reflects the vision and presents concrete plans of the European particle physics community for advancing human knowledge in fundamental physics. The ESPP is updated every five-to-six years through a community-driven process. It commences with the submission of specific proposals and other input from the community at large, outlining projects envisioned for the near-, mid-, and long-term future. All submitted contributions are evaluated by the Physics Preparatory Group (PPG), and a preliminary analysis is presented at a Symposium meant to foster a broad community discussion on the scientific value and feasibility of the various ideas proposed. The outcomes of the analysis and the deliberations at the Symposium are synthesized in the current Briefing Book, which provides an important input in the deliberations of the Strategy recommendations by the European Strategy Group (ESG).

hep-ex↗

arXiv2022

Bounds on right-handed neutrino parameters from observable leptogenesis

We revisit the generation of a matter-antimatter asymmetry in the minimal extension of the Standard Model with two singlet heavy neutral leptons (HNL) that can explain neutrino masses. We derive an accurate analytical approximation to the solution of the complete linearized set of kinetic equations, which exposes the non-trivial parameter dependencies in the form of parameterization-independent CP invariants. The identification of various washout regimes relevant in different regions of parameter space sheds light on the relevance of the mass corrections in the interaction rates and clarifies the correlations of baryogenesis with other observables. In particular, by requiring that the measured baryon asymmetry is reproduced, we derive robust upper or lower bounds on the HNL mixings depending on their masses, and constraints on their flavour structure, as well as on the CP-violating phases of the PMNS mixing matrix, and the amplitude of neutrinoless double-beta decay. We also find certain correlations between low and high scale CP phases. Especially emphasizing the testable part of the parameter space we demonstrate that our findings are in very good agreement with numerical results. The methods developed in this work can help in exploring more complex scenarios.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Feebly-Interacting Particles:FIPs 2020 Workshop Report

With the establishment and maturation of the experimental programs searching for new physics with sizeable couplings at the LHC, there is an increasing interest in the broader particle and astrophysics community for exploring the physics of light and feebly-interacting particles as a paradigm complementary to a New Physics sector at the TeV scale and beyond. FIPs 2020 has been the first workshop fully dedicated to the physics of feebly-interacting particles and was held virtually from 31 August to 4 September 2020. The workshop has gathered together experts from collider, beam dump, fixed target experiments, as well as from astrophysics, axions/ALPs searches, current/future neutrino experiments, and dark matter direct detection communities to discuss progress in experimental searches and underlying theory models for FIPs physics, and to enhance the cross-fertilisation across different fields. FIPs 2020 has been complemented by the topical workshop "Physics Beyond Colliders meets theory", held at CERN from 7 June to 9 June 2020. This document presents the summary of the talks presented at the workshops and the outcome of the subsequent discussions held immediately after. It aims to provide a clear picture of this blooming field and proposes a few recommendations for the next round of experimental results.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

The see-saw portal at future Higgs Factories

We consider an extension of the Standard Model with two right-handed singlet fermions with mass at the electroweak scale that induce neutrino masses, plus a generic new physics sector at a higher scale $Λ$. We focus on the effective operators of lowest dimension $d=5$, which induce new production and decay modes for the singlet fermions. We assess the sensitivity of future Higgs Factories, such as FCC-ee, CLIC-380, ILC and CEPC, to the coefficients of these operators for various center of mass energies. We show that future lepton colliders can test the cut-off of the theory up to $Λ\simeq 500 - 1000\;$TeV, surpassing the reach of future indirect measurements of the Higgs and $Z$ boson widths. We also comment on the possibility of determining the underlying model flavor structure should a New Physics signal be observed, and on the impact of higher dimensional $d=6$ operators on the experimental signatures.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Minimal flavor violation in the see-saw portal

We consider an extension of the Standard Model with two singlet leptons, with masses in the electroweak range, that induce neutrino masses via the see-saw mechanism, plus a generic new physics sector at a higher scale, $Λ$. We apply the minimal flavor violation (MFV) principle to the corresponding Effective Field Theory ($ν$SMEFT) valid at energy scales $E \ll Λ$. We identify the irreducible sources of lepton flavor and lepton number violation at the renormalizable level, and apply the MFV ansätz to derive the scaling of the Wilson coefficients of the $ν$SMEFT operators up to dimension six. We highlight the most important phenomenological consequences of this hypothesis in the rates for exotic Higgs decays, the decay length of the heavy neutrinos, and their production modes at present and future colliders. We also comment on possible astrophysical implications.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Leptogenesis from oscillations and dark matter

An extension of the Standard Model with Majorana singlet fermions in the 1-100 GeV range can give rise to a baryon asymmetry at freeze-in via the CP-violating oscillations of these neutrinos: this is the well known ARS mechanism. In this paper we consider possible extensions of the minimal ARS scenario that can account not only for successful leptogenesis but also explain other open problems such as dark matter. We find that an extension in the form of a weakly coupled B-L gauge boson, an invisible QCD axion model, and the singlet majoron model can simultaneously account for dark matter and the baryon asymmetry.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Non-leptonic kaon decays at large $N_c$

We study the scaling with the number of colors $N_c$ of the weak amplitudes mediating kaon mixing and decay, in the limit of light charm masses ($m_u=m_d=m_s=m_c$). The amplitudes are extracted directly on the lattice for $N_c = 3-7$ (with preliminar results for $N_c = 8$ and $17$) using twisted mass QCD. It is shown that the (sub-leading) $1/N_c$ corrections to $\hat B_K$ are small and that the naive $N_c \to \infty$ limit, $\hat B_K = 3/4$, seems to be recovered. On the other hand, the ${\cal O}\, (1/N_c)$ corrections in $K \to ππ$ amplitudes (derived from $K \to π$ matrix elements) are large and fully anti-correlated in the $I=0$ and $I=2$ channels. This may have some implications for the understanding of the $ΔI=1/2$ rule.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2015

A facility to Search for Hidden Particles at the CERN SPS: the SHiP physics case

This paper describes the physics case for a new fixed target facility at CERN SPS. The SHiP (Search for Hidden Particles) experiment is intended to hunt for new physics in the largely unexplored domain of very weakly interacting particles with masses below the Fermi scale, inaccessible to the LHC experiments, and to study tau neutrino physics. The same proton beam setup can be used later to look for decays of tau-leptons with lepton flavour number non-conservation, $τ\to 3μ$ and to search for weakly-interacting sub-GeV dark matter candidates. We discuss the evidence for physics beyond the Standard Model and describe interactions between new particles and four different portals - scalars, vectors, fermions or axion-like particles. We discuss motivations for different models, manifesting themselves via these interactions, and how they can be probed with the SHiP experiment and present several case studies. The prospects to search for relatively light SUSY and composite particles at SHiP are also discussed. We demonstrate that the SHiP experiment has a unique potential to discover new physics and can directly probe a number of solutions of beyond the Standard Model puzzles, such as neutrino masses, baryon asymmetry of the Universe, dark matter, and inflation

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Revisiting cosmological bounds on sterile neutrinos

We employ state-of-the art cosmological observables including supernova surveys and BAO information to provide constraints on the mass and mixing angle of a non-resonantly produced sterile neutrino species, showing that cosmology can effectively rule out sterile neutrinos which decay between BBN and the present day. The decoupling of an additional heavy neutrino species can modify the time dependence of the Universe's expansion between BBN and recombination and, in extreme cases, lead to an additional matter-dominated period; while this could naively lead to a younger Universe with a larger Hubble parameter, it could later be compensated by the extra radiation expected in the form of neutrinos from sterile decay. However, recombination-era observables including the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the shift parameter $R_{CMB}$ and the sound horizon $r_s$ from Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) severely constrain this scenario. We self-consistently include the full time-evolution of the coupled sterile neutrino and standard model sectors in an MCMC, showing that if decay occurs after BBN, the sterile neutrino is essentially bounded by the constraint $\sin^2θ\lesssim 0.026 (m_s/\mathrm{eV})^{-2}$.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2013

A non-perturbative study of massive gauge theories

We consider a non-perturbative formulation of an SU(2) massive gauge theory on a space-time lattice, which is also a discretised gauged non-linear chiral model. The lattice model is shown to have an exactly conserved global SU(2) symmetry. If a scaling region for the lattice model exists and the lightest degrees of freedom are spin one vector particles with the same quantum numbers as the conserved current, we argue that the most general effective theory describing their low-energy dynamics must be a massive gauge theory. We present results of a exploratory numerical simulation of the model and find indications for the presence of a scaling region where both a triplet vector and a scalar remain light.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2012

Probing the Neutrino Mass Hierarchy with Super-Kamiokande

We show that for recently discovered large values of theta(13), a superbeam with an average neutrino energy of ~ 5 GeV, such as those being proposed at CERN, if pointing to Super-Kamiokande (L = 8770 km), could reveal the neutrino mass hierarchy at 5 sigma in less than two years irrespective of the true hierarchy and CP phase. The measurement relies on the near resonant matter effect in the numu to nue oscillation channel, and can be done counting the total number of appearance events with just a neutrino beam.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Precision on leptonic mixing parameters at future neutrino oscillation experiments

We perform a comparison of the different future neutrino oscillation experiments based on the achievable precision in the determination of the fundamental parameters theta_{13} and the CP phase, delta, assuming that theta_{13} is in the range indicated by the recent Daya Bay measurement. We study the non-trivial dependence of the error on delta on its true value. When matter effects are small, the largest error is found at the points where CP violation is maximal, and the smallest at the CP conserving points. The situation is different when matter effects are sizable. As a result of this effect, the comparison of the physics reach of different experiments on the basis of the CP discovery potential, as usually done, can be misleading. We have compared various proposed super-beam, beta-beam and neutrino factory setups on the basis of the relative precision of theta_{13} and the error on delta. Neutrino factories, both high-energy or low-energy, outperform alternative beam technologies. An ultimate precision on theta_{13} below 3% and an error on delta of < 7^{\circ} at 1 sigma (1 d.o.f.) can be obtained at a neutrino factory.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Light quark correlators in a mixed-action setup

We report our progress in simulating Neuberger valence fermions on N_f=2 Wilson O(a)-improved sea quarks. We compute correlators with valence quark masses both in the p- and in the epsilon-regime, and we match the results with the predictions of the Chiral Effective Theory in the mixed regime. This allows us to extract the Low Energy Couplings (LECs) of the N_f=2 theory and to test the validity of the approach.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2011

Probing the chiral regime of Nf=2 QCD with mixed actions

We report on our first experiences with a mixed action setup with overlap valence quarks and non-perturbatively O(a) improved Wilson sea quarks. For the latter we employ CLS Nf=2 configurations with light sea quark masses at small lattice spacings. Exact chiral symmetry allows to consider very light valence quarks and explore the matching to (partially quenched) Chiral Perturbation Theory (ChPT) in a mixed epsilon/p-regime. We compute the topological susceptibility and the low-lying spectrum of the massless Neuberger-Dirac operator for three values of the sea quark mass, and compare the sea quark mass dependence to NLO ChPT in the mixed regime. This provides two different determinations of the chiral condensate, as well as information about some NLO low-energy couplings. Our results allow to test the consistency of the mixed-regime approach to ChPT, as well as of the mixed action framework.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2010

Exploring the chiral regime of $N_f=2$ QCD with mixed actions

We report on our simulations with Neuberger valence fermions on CLS $N_f=2$ configurations with non-perturbatively $O(a)$-improved Wilson sea quarks. We consider the matching of QCD to ChPT in the so called mixed-regime in which the sea quarks are in the $p$-regime while the valence quarks are in the $ε$-regime. From this matching, we can get information on $Σ$, $L_6$ and the combination $L_8+2L_6+2L_7$.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2009

Finite-size scaling of heavy-light mesons

We study the finite-size scaling of heavy-light mesons in the static limit. The most relevant effects are due to the pseudo-Goldstone boson cloud. In the HMChPT framework we compute two-point functions of left current densitities as well as pseudoscalar densitites for the cases in which some or all of them lay in the epsilon-regime. As expected, finite volume dependence turns out to be significant in this regime and can be predicted in the effective theory in terms of the infinite-volume low-energy couplings. These results might be relevant for extraction of heavy-light meson properties from lattice simulations.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2009

Heavy-light mesons in the epsilon-regime

We study the finite-size scaling of heavy-light mesons in the static limit. We compute two-point functions of chiral current densities as well as pseudoscalar densities in the epsilon-regime of heavy meson Chiral Perturbation Theory (HMChPT). As expected, finite volume dependence turns out to be significant in this regime and can be predicted in the effective theory in terms of the infinite-volume low-energy couplings. These results might be relevant for extraction of heavy-meson properties from lattice simulations.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2002

From enemies to friends: chiral symmetry on the lattice

The physics of strong interactions is invariant under the exchange of left-handed and right-handed quarks, at least in the massless limit. This invariance is reflected in the chiral symmetry of quantum chromodynamics. Surprisingly, it has become clear only recently how to implement this important symmetry in lattice formulations of quantum field theories. We will discuss realizations of exact lattice chiral symmetry and give an example of the computation of a physical observable in quantum chromodynamics where chiral symmetry is important. This calculation is performed by relying on finite size scaling methods as predicted by chiral perturbation theory.

hep-lat↗